The exposure apparatus including those of a one-shot exposure type such as steppers or those of a scanning exposure type such as scanning steppers are used for forming a predetermined pattern in each shot area on a substrate such as a wafer or a glass plate via a projection optical system, for example, in a lithography process for manufacturing devices (electronic devices or microdevices) such as semiconductor devices or liquid crystal display devices.
There are the recently-proposed exposure apparatus of a so-called maskless method to generate a variable pattern on the object plane of the projection optical system, using spatial light modulators (SLM) having an array of many microscopic mirrors an inclination angle of each of which is variable, instead of masks, for efficiently manufacturing each of devices while suppressing an increase of manufacturing cost due to preparation of masks for respective types of devices and masks for respective layers on the substrate (e.g., cf Patent Literature 1). There are also the proposed spatial light modulators of a type having an array of many micromirrors a height of a reflective surface of each of which is controllable, in order to control a phase distribution of incident light (e.g., cf Non Patent Literature 1).